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University Affairs deputy editor Léo Charbonneau shares his insights on interesting trends and happenings in Canada’s university sector.
What’s up with doctoral students?
Doctoral students at Canada’s universities seem to be displaying quite a bit of angst lately, judging by the general response to a number of items on our website over the past several months.
Last fall, for example, I wrote a blog post and accompanying news story that questioned whether the country was producing too many PhDs. The articles also raised the issue of whether graduate students were being adequately prepared for careers outside academia, considering that perhaps only one in four or five graduates will eventually land a full-time academic position. Judging from the tweets and comments, the articles seemed to hit a nerve, with many readers nodding in the affirmative.
A recent opinion piece on times to completion in doctoral programs, by Dalhousie University associate dean of graduate studies Sunny Marche, also ramped up the angst meter. Dr. Marche observed that the longer it takes for students to complete their doctoral programs, the more detrimental it is to them and the greater the risk of them not finishing. He said his university is now taking a more proactive approach and at the five-year mark will “ring the bell” advising doctoral students to get a move on to complete their PhD program.
That column, too, uncovered much underlying anxiety, in this case about the pressures of family commitments, the quality of supervision, the adequacy of funding and other resources, and so on. “How is this discourse,” asked one commenter, “promoting a healthy atmosphere for PhD students who are constantly scrambling to do everything they are expected of and still complete in a timely fashion?”
But it was Melonie Fullick, our Speculative Diction blogger, who hit the mother lode of buried angst with two posts around the holidays on PhD students, depression and attrition (read them here and here). Melonie wrote that she felt that clinical depression, extreme anxiety and other mental health issues are becoming more common in graduate programs and that there is a curtain of “thickly oppressive silence” surrounding these issues. The first post received 67 comments and counting – a record for our site – with many of the commenters saying essentially (I’m paraphrasing) “thank you, thank you for expressing and legitimizing my exact feelings.”
There is a conundrum, however. I asked a higher-education policy analyst about these complaints and concerns of PhD students, and he seemed a bit perplexed. Studies consistently show, he responded, that graduate students are very satisfied with their programs. I asked for proof and was sent a PDF copy of the Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey.
(You can link to the PDF document here; it is from the University of Calgary and shows data from 2007 for that institution but also the combined data for what was then the G-13 group of research-intensive universities, which account for the bulk of grad students. Nearly 70,000 students were asked to participate and more than 25,000 responded, for a response rate of 36.8 percent. Another iteration of the survey was conducted in 2010 and some individual institutions have posted their results online, but I can’t find combined data for all the responding institutions. However, looking at a few institutions and their 2010 data, the responses do not seem much different from 2007).
So what does the data show? Asked to rate their academic experience at their institution, 68 percent of respondents said either “excellent” or “very good,” with a further 22 percent saying merely “good.” That leaves under 10 percent rating their experience “fair” or “poor.” There were very similar results when asked to rate their overall experience at their university. Asked if they were to start their graduate or professional career again, would they select this same university, 33 percent said definitely and 39 percent said probably – a fairly strong endorsement. Asked if they would select the same field of study, 52 percent said definitely and 29 percent said probably.
Respondents also gave high or relatively high marks for the intellectual quality of the faculty, their teaching quality, the quality of their guidance, etc. The only areas where a majority or near majority responded “fair” or “poor” were in relation to advice and/or workshops for things such as “writing grant proposals,” “career options within academia,” “career options outside academia” and “about research positions.” OK, so there is some latent anxiety there, but overall the responses seem quite positive. What gives?
Well, for one thing, the survey involves both master’s students (58.4 percent) and doctoral students (41.6 percent). There is no breakdown provided by level of study, so it is possible that master’s students, with their shorter and more focused programs, have higher satisfaction levels than doctoral students with their longer, more demanding programs. Also, there is no direct question on the survey about anxiety and mental health issues specifically. However, students were asked about their “student life experience” and nearly half rated it as excellent or very good, with a further 32 percent saying good.
I would be interested to hear other potential explanations for the apparent discrepancy between doctoral students’ anecdotal reports of anxiety and dissatisfaction versus the relatively positive satisfaction levels found in the Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey.
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11 Responses to “What’s up with doctoral students?”
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I have always wanted know whether or not people who enter doctoral studies already exhibit tendencies of stress or anxiety and the high stakes of the PhD makes everything a lot worse, or if the doctoral program is the sole problem. As a person deals with anxiety, I can confidently say that my anxiety existed long before I started my graduate studies. I don’t know if that can be said for everyone.
That being said, I do enjoy my graduate program and I have never regretted pursuing my PhD, but it has required a lot of work to cope with my anxiety issues and so I can still be successful. But I find that the issue is rarely discussed, and the support for this is minimal or non-existent in some cases.
Anxiety and depression are not uncommon among the ‘creative’ types (for want of a better word) who make up a large chunk of PhD students (disclaimer: I have a PhD and generally enjoyed grad school despite the challenges and occasional let-downs).
However, people who are well balanced rarely comment negatively (or even comment much) on public sites, while those with an ax to grind tend to dominate these forums (just check out the comments section of a major newspaper !).
I think two different things are being measured here, which is why there appears to be a disconnect between satisfaction with the academic programme, and yet apparent satisfaction with their programme. Am I satisfied with my programme. Absolutely, though with some minor quibbles, but I basically knew many of the weaknesses coming in. Am I under stress and suffering angst? Absolutely, and some of the reasons have been mentioned. Family commitments, insufficient financial support leading me to take on my work duties than is optimal for completing my dissertation. Having to work around the year teaching/TAing, thus not having any significant blocks of time devoted solely to my research and writing. A horrific job market with little recognition within the university of the need for skills and a plan B in event I can’t obtain an academic position, particularly as the private sector in Canada appears to be adverse to PhDs. I am way past the 5-year mark, but will finish. However, to decrease the anxiety and angst, it would be worth universities looking at the source of that as well. And some of that will be found in the conditions under which we are provided with financial support and exploited as cheap labour as a result.
A few comments to the idea that “Studies consistently show that graduate students are very satisfied with their programs.” To use a innocent analogy, if you ask a child in a theme park what his/her experience is, you’d invariably get the answer that it’s all fine, actually quite fantastic. However, if the kid sticks around for a few years and at a certain point (s)he’s forced out, facing the somber reality outside, then anxiety & depression may be the least of the troubles (s)he’ll be confronted with. What I mean to say is that we live in an age of almost completely useless statistics. A more rational person would also try the following: design a questionnaire which asks Phd holders (only) a few years AFTER they’ve finished the degree how happy they are with their academic past and decisions. Then, one should also inquire into the ratio between alumni and job openings in the academia in their respective fields. Then one should also correlate this data with how many Phd students are enrolled at that time in the program and see whether the number varied in any way in comparison with the previous years. Here, the truth might be utterly dismal and not because corporations demonically conspire to wreck smart people’s lives but because the government financially rewards departments with higher and higher numbers of doctoral students without ever asking what those poor schmucks will do after they get their doctorate. One should also note the high rate at which university professors endlessly protest against exploitation, while daily profiting from cheap labor. More exactly, the latter comes from underpaid TA’s or disgruntled instructors eager to do pretty much anything to teach a couple of courses just to stay afloat, irrationally believing that one day they’ll get that much-envied tenured position. One should coevally ask why is it that the market is reluctant in hiring PhD’s, especially from the field of Humanities (for I’m not so sure that a Phd in computer science will get one nowhere these days). A possible answer is that Humanities have become so lofty, self-assured, utopian, insulary, sublimely speculative, militantly ideological, impenetrable in their jargon, and generally irrelevant concerning life out there, that no one in their right mind sees any point in hiring any of these guys. And they might not be entirely wrong. Relevant statistics in this regard do not exist just to protect a status-quo, formed by university administrations, a callous professorial apparatus, and a government eager to spend someone else’s money with absolutely no fear that, should they waste it, the price they have to pay (i.e., being fired) is null. Meanwhile, graduate students or alumni face a increasingly bleaker world, constantly battling their shattered selves, broken families, intellectual exhaustion, and a society who could not care less for their (childish) hopes and ordeals.
In my experience, there comes a point in doctoral studies when a student learns the truth about how higher ed works – namely that there is no job market, the degree has little value outside academe, and most research is done for the sake of tenure. That is when student attitudes begin to turn sour.
It mostly happens in the latter stages of the degree, such as after one starts teaching classes and gets a sense of how poorly depts treat and pay sessionals. Attending depts meetings also can be a shock to the system – where there is exposure to just how unprofessional and petty dept politics can be.
Regardless, I’m suspect of any studies of this kind, having been surveyed for several myself. There always is a fear that the participant can be somehow identified, and saying anything critical of your program might come back to haunt you in job hunts, peer reviews, etc. There also is a large amount of delusion among grad students, especially those just starting out – grad school is a kind of cult afterall.
Today’s PhD comic strip from Jorge Cham seems perfectly timed for the discussion on this blog post. Enjoy:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1488
Many times university administered surveys are used for the ranking of the university by external agencies. As a graduate student I would be “biased” to rank my program higher and support my institution, even if I am not very happy with my overall situation. Simply because after a few years I will be looking for a job and I will use the ranking of my university to impress my prospective employers. Will it work for me? I don’t know.
Great post– I was aware of the talk around the relative prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in grad programs, but not of the high level of satisfaction with these programs reported by… well, at least in part, by those very same depressed and anxious students.
It’s surprising to me that we (I’m a grad student myself) don’t tie depression, anxiety, or general unease to our workplaces or careers. I think the reason for this is quite simple: grad programs are supposed to be grueling and arduous, no? Plus, we can each look at the department we work and study in and recognize the wonderful resources and supports offered by our communities there.
But if depression and anxiety really are becoming more and more common among grad students, I firmly believe that universities, departments, and faculty need to respond. Mental illness is so often considered an individual problem. The link between the rise of depression/anxiety and recognizably stressful working conditions in graduate schools suggests the exact opposite. This is not a personal problem, but a structural one. And sure, some of those structural problems may be difficult to resolve. How could faculty members or department heads, for example, do anything about a weak job market? But I think there are things we can do within our departments and universities to improve the situation: set up graduate writing centres, offer training to grad students and to faculty on what supervisory relationships actually look like, offer student-run courses in third and fourth year on areas of specialization…
One’s intellectual satisfaction during the completion of a graduate degree and one’s chances of finding gainful employment after finishing a graduate degree are, more often than not, two completely unrelated things–and I would think it’s the latter that’s leading to depression among doctoral students, not the former.
I withdrew from my PhD program (with very good grades, I might add) not because I was unhappy with the quality of the education I was receiving; in fact, I was extremely satisfied with my institution on a purely academic level and consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with as many respected scholars as I did. Rather, I withdrew from my program because I didn’t want to find myself struggling as an adjunct in my early 30s. Because I didn’t want to put my personal life on hold for a tenure-track position that may or may not have been there two to three years after graduating. Because I didn’t want to compete with people fresh out of high school for entry-level non-academic jobs that do not require a university degree, of which I would have had three by that point.
I’m struggling enough as it is to find a job right now with just a master’s degree to my name, so I would hate to think how bad things might have been if I’d actually finished my PhD. Sure, I could have gotten lucky and found the academic-equivalent of the Holy Grail. In the likelier scenario, however, I would have been in the situation that I’m currently in now–just at a point in my life when I’d ideally like to have a family and a stable career.
Universities absolutely need to make career fairs and career-building seminars a priority, because the old “get a degree, get a job” adage is simply not true in today’s economy. Graduate schools in particular need to be far more proactive when it comes to providing their students with information about non-academic career options. My alma mater, for instance, is very good at providing instructional sessions for things like creating teaching dossiers and preparing academic CVs–but those sessions will only benefit a minute fraction of my former colleagues when they eventually graduate. Yes, it’s up to the individual student to better inform his or herself about his or her options before heading off to grad school (aside: I’m very thankful for UA’s “Escape the Ivory Tower” podcast, which I stumbled upon quite by accident), but I think that if program administrators REALLY want to do something positive about the student angst that is, yes, a growing and much-ignored problem at the graduate level, then holding a few informational sessions that might actually help us find our way when we leave with all those letters after our names would be a step in the right direction.
Yes, I am quite certain that the poor job prospects – and better publicity thereof – are aggravating mental health problems among grad students and recent graduates. But there is another factor that I think is making things even worse these days, and that is the fact that so many non-professorial options are also disappearing. I am an academic librarian, and while I love my profession, I no longer recommend that people pursue this option unless they have something that differentiates them from the hordes of people with undergraduate or even graduate degrees in the humanities, as well as in library science, who are applying for every opening. If you have a degree in math or science, and then become a librarian, you will almost certainly get a job easily, but I have started telling students with degrees in English or history that they had best find additional ways to set themselves apart if they want to go to library school. I now get about 75-100 applications for most non-specialized openings (ie those that do not demand a specific subject background, which in my institution are relatively rare), and lately, 90% of them are from people with multiple graduate degrees in history or English.
A recent cover story on mental health among university students puts some of this in a new light for me (Queen’s Alumni Review Issue 2, 2012: 18-21). Universities will act to help students without really considering how to STOP the emotional and psychological damage done by some professors. Many grad students have witnessed a phenomenon I call the “pedagogy of abuse.” The apparent aim of PoA was ‘gate-keeping’ academe, and its motto was akin to “I, the professor, suffered for my education, now it’s your turn, students.” Thankfully, the practitioners of PoA are fewer and fewer; so-called ‘dinosaur’ professors have all but retired from the academy.